“The leadership I experienced was our community working towards a common goal.”
Grant C. Peterson
Institute of Professional Leadership Hardwick Fellow
I was furious as I paced the hall of the Tennessee Capitol. I had spent all day debating with other students to get my draft bill passed by our youth legislature only to be told that our conference governor wasn’t going to sign it. “Was a failed bill going to be my outcome for Youth in Government?” I lamented to another student senator. Thankfully, the student I was venting was classmates with a member of the Governor’s cabinet. A few meetings, some palm greasing, and one last round of spirited debate later and my bill was passed into law. Or at least the closest thing to law for our simulated conference. As a result, I received the honor of Outstanding Statesmen. Was this what leadership felt like?
My name is Grant Peterson and I, along with my peer Kirksey Croft, serve as one of the Institute of Professional Leadership’s Hardwick Fellows for the 2024 academic year. In my role, I help publish entries for the Institute’s Lawyers as Leaders blog. I have the privilege of learning so many great lessons from our contributors. As I have read through our extensive archive of blogs (which you should do as well) I noticed that we have a glaring omission in our coverage. We have yet to answer the foundational question, “What is leadership?”
As any good law student, when I am unfamiliar with a term I refer to Black’s Law Dictionary. It defines leadership as “the position as head of a group of people or an organization.” Similarly, the Merriam Webster online dictionary states “the office or position of a leader.” These definitions matched my understanding of leadership after my Youth in Government conference. Leadership meant titles, offices, and positions. It had to. I was practicing leadership as an “Outstanding Statesman.” In order to be a leader I needed to run for as many officer positions in organizations as I could. When I went to college I knew I wanted to continue youth civics. I remember early in my college career running for membership chair of the University of Tennessee’s Model UN program. I was hungry to practice leadership after arriving on campus. The election did not go in my favor that time and I lost. I was crushed. How could I develop leadership when I was on the outside? A results oriented leadership framework proved unhelpful and even harmful. When I failed to achieve a “position of a leader,” which I did often, my esteem and motivation took a massive hit. Maybe “Outstanding Statesman” was just a lucky fluke.
In preparation for writing, I scoured the internet for succinct descriptions of leadership. It turns out everyone has an opinion on the matter and not all of them are valuable. One of the sources I discovered was a group called the Center for Creative Leadership. This group, like the Institute for Professional Leadership, is a non-profit founded in the 1970s that offers leadership development courses to corporate and public partners. While words will never be perfect tools, the Center’s definition reframes leadership in a more helpful manner. Leadership is “a social process that enables individuals to work together to achieve results that they could never achieve working alone.” [1]. In other words, “everyone in an organization contributes to leadership.”[2].
The simple definitions of leadership in both Black’s Law and Merriam Webster dictionaries failed to capture the reality of leadership. Results oriented leadership leads to alienation and hierarchy as some members of an organization are anointed leaders while others are shut out. By contrast, a process oriented leadership framework provides every member of an organization to contribute towards a goal. I slowly started discovering the process of leadership after my first election loss. Despite losing the membership chair seat I picked myself up and continued to participate in Model United Nations. I trained with our travel team and competed at conferences. Over four years and twenty conferences we went from an unranked regional program to a top #25 team in North America – together. Our accomplishments were never tied to position, but our cooperation and fraternal bond.
When I think back to my high school Youth in Government conference, I no longer immediately think of that Outstanding Statesman plaque. Instead, I remember my friends and classmates. I remember our civil discussion and heated arguments. I remember all the people that came together to help pass my bill and give me a memory I recall warmly to this day. The leadership I experienced was our community working towards a common goal. Leadership is not a position. Leadership is a process.
[1] Center for Creative Leadership, https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/what-is-leadership-a-definition/ (last visited October 3, 2024)
[2] Id.
